Er, great news: New spin-off confirmed for “The Walking Dead”

posted at 6:01 pm on March 28, 2014 by Allahpundit

A zombie-themed palate cleanser in honor of the left, which is busy eating its own this afternoon. You know, just the other day I was thinking, “How am I going to bore myself on Sunday nights once TWD’s season is over?” Soon I might not have to ask: There may be “Walking Dead” derivatives airing on AMC all year round. Given the ratings, who could blame them? May a thousand grumble threads bloom, my friends.

Seriously, though, this is good news. Seriously!

Months after AMC announced its intention to create a companion show to The Walking Dead, the network has confirmed that the series is officially happening, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The network brought on writer-producer Dave Erickson (Sons of Anarchy, Low Winter Sun) as showrunner, executive producer and co-writer, according to Uproxx. He joins a team for the show that includes Dead creator Robert Kirkman and producer Gale Anne Hurd.

The still-untitled series was previously rumored to be a prequel that would focus on the events that led up to the main series’ apocalyptic storyline. But neither the network nor the producers have hinted at what the show will be about other than the fact that it won’t technically be a “spinoff” since it won’t feature characters from The Walking Dead TV series. Uproxx theorizes that the new series will be set in the same apocalypse timeline. Last year, creator Robert Kirkman confirmed that the show will feature an entirely new cast and location, but offered little else.

Is it a spin-off or is it a reboot? If the big change in the new show is primarily about location, i.e. the urban side of the zombie apocalypse, then it’s basically a reboot. Which is fine: The problem all along with TWD has been that the characters aren’t interesting and the story moves too slowly. The basic premise is golden; what you need are new writers and a new cast to do a better job of exploring it. If, on the other hand, the new show is a prequel about the zombie outbreak a la “World War Z,” that’s fine too — the moral agonies of quarantine are rich fuel for drama. I wonder, though, how long they can sustain that, especially since we know upfront that the outbreak does not, in fact, end up being contained. How many seasons of “it’s spreading further west!” can you do before that either gets stale or evolves into the same sort of post-apocalypse survivalist travelogue as TWD?

My two cents: They should forget about having a recurring cast or, if they insist on having one, they should use it sparingly. They should definitely forget about having a recurring set insofar as the show’s budget permits that. One of the frustrations of the zombie genre is that the outbreak is always of global scope but, with rare exceptions (like “World War Z”), the story sticks to just one tiny corner of it. If you jettison the recurring cast — or focus on them only sporadically, a la the “mythology” storyline on “The X Files” — you can paint on many more parts of that canvas. Why not do a satire of the media by devoting one episode to how cable news would have handled the first outbreak of zombie-ism? Do an episode from a war room as political leaders try to game out how other nations would respond militarily to zombie chaos. Have one set in a hospital as doctors try to cope with the injured while holding zombies at bay. You could even invite accomplished directors to contribute an episode, just to see how different sensibilities approach a problem like this. One of the reasons I grumble about the show (more than I should, in fairness) is because it’s always in the back of my mind when I’m watching that there are many more interesting things going on in the fictional world of TWD than 45 minutes of Rick moping about Lori. This isn’t “Lost”; the writers aren’t stuck on an island. Why grant yourself a set as big as the whole world if all you want to do is screw around in a corner of Georgia? The new show solves that problem. A little.

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And the obvious answer is– set a large group of survivors, like in Texas or Nebraska, working against the Zombies. I liked the Texas location better, as some small micro-communities organize into a place called “Lone Star” and organized to fight the hordes from Austin, Houston and San Antonio. They would have to struggle to solve basic problems (food, clean water, crops, medicine, power, ammunition shortages, etc). And they would be threatened by the few million or so zombies wandering around Texas, as well as marauders from Mexico and around the US.

Plus I’d make sure there was a religious undercurrent, a recurring idea that this is a real Biblical apocalypse, and how the main characters dealt with it.

Does anyone actually watch this ridiculous tripe?
Jaibones on March 28, 2014 at 6:18 PM

Mark Levin opened his show talking about the death of Jeremiah Denton today
and how he blinked the word “torture” in morse code when paraded before cameras by his Vietnam
captors and went on to become a Republican senator? It’s a shame I’d never heard of him but from what I heard he deserves to be remembered.

The problem all along with TWD has been that the characters aren’t interesting and the story moves too slowly. The basic premise is golden; what you need are new writers and a new cast to do a better job of exploring it.

I would love an alternate story line that would air during the spring & summer based on the same premise! And make it in a state that thinks strong gun laws are the way to go! With lots of liberal Lizzies that think the walkers are just biologically challenged.

Allahpundit, I love you man, but really, you’re taking this way, way, too seriously. Watch Boardwalk Empire. All the living characters in the show are kind of hateful, and the only guy I really liked was killed off last season. But hey, it’s better than watching zombies and sweaty humans who haven’t taken a bath in about three seasons!

One of the reasons I grumble about the show (more than I should, in fairness) is because it’s always in the back of my mind when I’m watching that there are many more interesting things going on in the fictional world of TWD than 45 minutes of Rick moping about Lori.

You forget the “Carl suffering teen agnst in a zombie world” theme. Absolutely riveting! Any day now I expect Carl to scream I hate you- I hate you- I hate you! At rick and slam a door when Rick objects to Carl’s teenage zombie girlfriend. ;0

Seriously, the regulars have become so boring at times, I find myself rooting for the walkers. Though we did learn this season that even at the end of the world as we know it- nobody likes peach schnapps.

That actually would be very cool. Different characters, directors, writers, etc. all working within the framework of a single set of events. Say, for example, the month that things spun out of control. So, the viewer would be familiar with the general plot points but not how the characters respond.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against the actor. But the idea of a woman warrior wielding a samurai sword against zombies just makes me think of her as just another male pubescent fantasy of a kick-ass female character in tight clothing, master martial artist, swordswoman extraordinaire, etc. Sort of along the lines of River in Serenity, virtually all of the movies of Milla Jovovich (Resident Evil, Ultraviolet, The Fifth Element), the Underworld franchises, even the Black Widow in the Avengers / Iron Man movies.

Allah is like those people who proudly claim they don’t own a television hoping it makes them seem so enlightened and above trivial little things. He is obsessed with Walking Dead but pretends he doesn’t like it because … you know, his so above that stuff. Like I said before, most people who don’t like a certain TV show don’t watch it. If you really love a certain TV show, you never miss an episode. So, we know where Allah sits. The pretending that you can’t stand the show is getting old.

I think it will be Rick’s last show this week. He will be on Talking Dead live Sunday for the first time ever, which is usually the kiss of death for cast members. He seems like the type that would not miss an opportunity to have fans boohoo over him.

the idea of a woman warrior wielding a samurai sword against zombies just makes me think of her as just another male pubescent fantasy of a kick-ass female character in tight clothing, master martial artist, swordswoman extraordinaire, etc.

Mitoch55 on March 28, 2014 at 8:59 PM

I think you are wrong here. The women of Walking Dead are actually the stronger characters. And it isn’t just because the survivor females can kill walkers like a man.

Carol, for example, was the only one who thought it necessary to teach the young how to kill walkers. Carol was raising the next generation while Rick was raising crops.

Michonne has discovered a talent that she probably wouldn’t have discovered before the walkers took over the ATL. Had she lived in Detroit, the story would have been different. Nevertheless, she has her weapon of choice just like Daryl has his crossbow.

And BTW, Danai Gurira is hot and intelligent. I don’t want to see her character go anywhere!!!

I think it will be Rick’s last show this week. He will be on Talking Dead live Sunday for the first time ever, which is usually the kiss of death for cast members. He seems like the type that would not miss an opportunity to have fans boohoo over him.

HellCat on March 28, 2014 at 9:38 PM

Wrong!

Last episode of the season. At most it will end as if Rick is dead. It will end with enough outs that he can surface from a pile of dispatched walkers at the beginning of the next season. Rick is the Jack Bauer of TWD- bulletproof. Even as those around him are not.

Last episode of the season. At most it will end as if Rick is dead. It will end with enough outs that he can surface from a pile of dispatched walkers at the beginning of the next season. Rick is the Jack Bauer of TWD- bulletproof. Even as those around him are not.

I agree with you. The women are the stronger characters. But Michonne is straight out of the lurid pubescent imaginations of teenage boys. A fighter with t!ts so they can say, “Man! Look at how she fights!” when their parents catch them rewinding the movie (back in the days of VHS) and playing it back in slow motion.

I think it will be Rick’s last show this week. He will be on Talking Dead live Sunday for the first time ever, which is usually the kiss of death for cast members.

HellCat on March 28, 2014 at 9:38 PM

That may or may not mean anything.

The actor who plays Glenn has been on Talking Dead 2 or 3 times before, as has, I believe, his TV girlfriend, Maggie. But they are still on the show, to this point.

If anything, if the Terminus lady (who was manning the BBQ grill on last episode) is part of a cannibal clan (paralleling the comic book), I’d say maybe either Bethe Greene was already turned into a hamburger (that was her body parts cooking on the grill, the meat that was cooking), or Maggie, Glenn, Sasha, and Bob will be turned into sandwiches.

Maybe by the time Rick, Carl, and Michonne arrive at Terminus, they will find Maggie, Glenn, and Bob dead and cooked on the grill, with apples in their mouths.

Hellcat said

He [Rick Grimes / Andrew Lincoln] seems like the type that would not miss an opportunity to have fans boohoo over him.

HellCat on March 28, 2014 at 9:38 PM

The actor who plays him? I don’t get them from him at all.

If Lincoln was a camera hog, attention-seeking guy, he would be out there more than he is.

Norman Reedus (who plays Daryl Dixon) does far more fan convention and TV show and magazine interviews than Lincoln. (I’m not saying that Reedus is an egotist, though, he seems quite the opposite.)

But if Lincoln wanted that sort of attention, he could be on TV ten times more than he is, and at all the fan conventions. He doesn’t do a lot of interviewing in print or on TV.

Actually, by the end of the Woodbury season I totally burned out on zombies, period. What new twist can there be? Zombie superheroes? Celebrities as zombies? “Zombieland” already did that when Bill Murray turned up as himself.

Walking Dead is a great comic/graphic novel series. The tv series is not faring so well. The characters are stale, the story in boring, and the writers seem to be making it up as they go along. The show feels like it is in the doldrums. It should be cancelled as soon as possible. Someone forgot that at the end of the day, this is just a story about zombies…not a post apocalyptic version of Lost.

start on an aircraft carrier, and have someone get hurt badly or killed through normal operations. shortly after getting him to the medical bay, he turns. slowly the walkers take over the ship..it is a closed environment after all..end with the ship moving slowly in large circles, completely overrun by walkers.

another question..through the whole walking dead TV show and comics..where are the submarines? a sub (and any other nuke powered ship) would be able to keep going for a long time, and you’d think they’d start working together.

raiding ships and shore facilities for food, trading fresh water and fuel to other sea-going survivors, ect…

One of the problems with all episodic TV in my opinion is that they want to milk it forever. Setting up a well-paced series that starts and stops in a season or two would make a LOT of series better I think.

Along those lines (and based on your comments above), I think you might find the Newsflesh trilogy (Feed, Deadline and Blackout) my Mira Grant to be of interest. The settings are not as diverse as you envision, but the angle of approach is different and much more contemporary than a lot of the current Zombie community.